Tuesday, April 14, 2015

A smile and a wave


I hold a public office in a very small community. Most here are third, fourth, fifth, even sixth generation. Born here and never left. They are proud of being each other’s cousins. I count the inbreeding as responsible for the meanness.

If I were an ordinary citizen, just the ordinary “come here”, as opposed to “from here” of most others, I doubt I would notice. My friends are people I like, and I know I like people from both camps. As the town clerk I need to know a lot of people, and a lot of them aren't my friends. I attribute that directly to their meanness.

A large cloud of meanness has hung over the township for more than a year. Some days it’s more depressing than others, and today was one of those. Even the road guys looked like Joe Btfsplk under his dark rain cloud this morning, and I got a small dose myself.

I was thinking grumpy thoughts on the way home, but I did slow down by the lake to see if a heron was there, even though I had no camera. A little further up the road the police chief slowed and waved. The fellow who stopped the other day to see if I needed help, and scared away my heron. I smiled and waved back.

A couple of curves later Priscilla, another police officer drove past. Another smile and a wave. Priscilla let Mrs. Claus off a couple of years ago, when Mrs. Claus sped through town to get to the sleigh and wave to the children on the Polar Express. I like Priscilla.


When I arrived home and my sister pointed out a deer had sampled through the bulbs last night (grape hyacinths and crocus trimmed neatly to the ground) we laughed together; it must have been a very young deer just learning what tastes good. It will be in deer heaven when the hostas are grown.



A neatly trimmed grape hyacinth


Daffodil bed, unmolested



Two red anemones, a day from blooming

29 comments:

  1. nothing like a smile and a wave to boost you out of grumpiness. at least the grape hyacinth will still bloom. unless of course the deer comes back. this is why I'm glad I do not have deer around.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I learned some years ago that if I was feeling down or nasty the best thing to do is to paste a big goofy smile on my face. The more often I did it the easier it became for it to become real and I felt better.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the flowers, even those sampled by deer! Ah, small-town life...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hate meanness more than any other fault Joanne - it is soul destroying for the mean person as well as for those on the receiving end.
    My mother's favourite flowers were those anemones in such beautiful red and purple colours.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hari Om
    Nature, some friendly nurture and some laughter. All the right remedies going on for a stinker of a day Joanne. I favour some blog-trawling too!!! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah - small communities - different and yet always the same. Infuriating and lovable. Not sure if I could say that about a deer that ate my plants, though.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I often think grumpy thoughts Joanne and they do me no good at all. Love your Anenome. I can't grow them here and have to buy them at vast expense if I want to admire their breathtaking beauty. Hope the Deer don't get them.....

    ReplyDelete
  8. And I thought everyone in the Midwest was nice. Sounds like you're describing New Jersey.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Makes it even more important to be one of the kind people.

    ReplyDelete
  10. There's a story behind the meanness...wouldn't you like to know the stories?

    ReplyDelete
  11. There is a 'large cloud of meaness' hanging over our world.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A smile and a wave can evaporate even the meanest cloud.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Smiling and waving to you. You so often bring me magic.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I loved this post....it's chatty simplicity

    ReplyDelete
  15. Meanness, it dwarfs the soul. I can understand being frustrated by/with it, but there's nothing mean about YOU Joanne... your soul simply isn't small enough for that. You are, in fact, infused with an immense generosity of heart.

    ReplyDelete
  16. oh today I dealt with a sibling meanness; so debilitating, but then I remembered a lady in line at the grocery store this past winter who volunteered to pay for my groceries because she thought my attire meant I couldn't afford the cost, little I could, but I almost cried then, and evennow at the ultimate generosity of someine who did not know me and of those who we meet so seldom and yet so generous and wonderful and giving they are thank goodness for the smiles and the waves.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Glad you decided not to let the meanness affect your whole day and you could smile at the story of the deer who came to have a snack in your garden :) Its sad the town is mean like that; working together with kindness and laughter might get better results down the road.

    betty

    ReplyDelete
  18. Inbreeding? Don't they realise what they are doing?
    I like your daffodil bed, all those bulbs massed together will look fantastic when they bloom.
    I'll be planting out my own bulbs soon, probably this weekend and plan to mass them closer together for a better display. No pots this year, they're all going in the garden.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I've always thought the cure for the grumpies was to *do something for somebody quick*... even if it's just a smile. And if in doubt, always do the kind thing (sounds like Pollyanna-ish, but it works).

    ReplyDelete
  20. Dear Joanne, to think of deers in your garden shows me how different our surroundings are - though I have to say the deer did its "mower-job" meticuously, Mayby you can cast him as Santa Claus' deer, forgetting generously the "rein" - (or did I get the story wrong?) - and he could be waved (or is it woven?) away - with a smile.

    ReplyDelete
  21. interesting viewpoint about the community
    good and bad people all around

    ReplyDelete
  22. I hope Bamby does not come back. I also live in a place where to be local you have to be 4th or 5th generation. It can be funny sometime. Two friends were talking about an immigrant, I asked them what country he was from. Oh - Kincardine they said (same province, same county but South of here). All the "foreigners" burst out laughing.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I was going to do a post about "born and bred" in a small town.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Oh sorry for the hyacinths. They are one of my favorite spring flowers. Small towns remind me of the Andy Griffin show in some ways. In that TV series everyone did seem to know each other. I grew up in a fairly small town where I knew many but not all. Living in a small town felt good to me in my youth. -- barbara

    ReplyDelete
  25. Oh sorry for the hyacinths. They are one of my favorite spring flowers. Small towns remind me of the Andy Griffin show in some ways. In that TV series everyone did seem to know each other. I grew up in a fairly small town where I knew many but not all. Living in a small town felt good to me in my youth. -- barbara

    ReplyDelete
  26. A smile and a wave really does work wonders! I'm glad you found the silver lining in your stormy day, Joanne. I admire you for taking on such a big responsibility, and hope that you send all the annoying people packing. By the way, your flowers are beautiful!

    Julie

    ReplyDelete
  27. I feel like I was riding in the car with you. Thanks for the drive. And the view of the beautiful that comes up after winter's gloom.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Well, at least you got some smiles from those police officers. Lol.

    ReplyDelete